Liquid crystal displays are commonly used as display devices for compact electronic apparatuses, because they not only provide good quality images but are also very thin. Double-sided liquid crystal displays are more and more popular in electronic apparatuses, for example mobile phones and laptop computers.
Referring to FIG. 5, a typical double-sided liquid crystal display 10 includes a first liquid crystal panel 11, a first backlight module 12, a second backlight module 13, and a second liquid crystal panel 14, arranged in that order from top to bottom. The first backlight module 12 provides light beams for the first liquid crystal panel 11. The second backlight module 13 provides light beams for the second liquid crystal panel 14. Thus, the double-sided liquid crystal display 10 can achieve dual display. However, the double-sided liquid crystal display 10 is costly, and it is difficult to configure the double-sided liquid crystal display 10 to be thin.
Referring to FIG. 6, another typical double-sided liquid crystal display 20 includes a first liquid crystal panel 21, a second liquid crystal panel 24 opposite to the first liquid crystal panel 21, and a backlight module 22 located between the first and second liquid crystal panels 21, 24. The backlight module 22 includes a light guide plate 223, and a plurality of light emitting diodes (LEDs) 221 located adjacent to a light incident surface (not labeled) of the light guide plate 223. Thus, the backlight module 22 is configured to provide light beams for the first and second liquid crystal panels 21, 24. The first liquid crystal panel 21 has a size smaller than that of the second liquid crystal panel 24, and correspondingly requires less light beams for displaying than the second liquid crystal panel 24 does. Comparing to double-sided liquid crystal display 10, the double-sided liquid crystal display 20 is thinner. However, all the light emitting diodes 221 need to be lit up even when the small-sized first liquid crystal panel 21 is controlled to display. This results in a great waste of power consumption of the double-sided liquid crystal display 20.
What is needed, therefore, is a double-sided liquid crystal display that can circumvent, overcome or at least mitigate the above-described difficulties. What is also needed is a laptop computer employing the double-sided liquid crystal display.